


blood makes noise (i think you might want to know the details and the facts)

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, BUCKETS OF ANGST, Canon-Typical Violence, Coulson excels at emotional support, Coulson is a damsel in distress, F/M, Future Fic, Hugs, I HAVE AN AXE TO GRIND WITH FANDOM: THE FIC, Making Out, POV Alternating, Plot, Skye being the best thing ever, WHY DID I WRITE THIS AGAIN, Wangst, can you tell i've watched Dollhouse too many times, healing makeouts, how does technology work i don't know, i can't write action for shit, i can't write plot for shit, lol plot yeah right, predictable ending, so many words for such a silly premise, the world needs more Raina fic, this has so much plot and it's all so silly, vague The Winter Soldier spoilers, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:29:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1426834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You see, every hero needs a nemesis.</i> </p><p>Or, the Clairvoyant takes a personal interest in Skye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blood makes noise (i think you might want to know the details and the facts)

**Author's Note:**

> Written mostly before 1x16 aired. This is a silly idea that refused to let me go - it's not my favourite Clairvoyant theory but I wanted to write Skye as having an anime character backstory. While in progress I called this fic "Skye and the Clairvoyant written as if they were Uchihas", that should tell you everything. Don't take it too seriously, the plot is an excuse for the Coulson/Skye.

_he's lying he's lying he's lying_ – it will become Skye's mantra.

 

+

 

"To be resurrected, first you have to die," he says in Raina's ear, his hands around her neck, hot, those long, skillful fingers, she has seen what they can do.

Raina shivers.

“Not yet,” he says. “It's important to have a plan.”

Raina thinks he's beautiful like some poisonous thing you'd find in the desert.

 

+

 

You see, every hero needs a nemesis.

 

+

 

After her first escape it takes Coulson's team a week to find her.

(a week she remembers like she'd remember being drugged, or being drowned, or his voice)

No one was looking for her, she figured, but these people hold on to the idea of usefulness in a world that no longer has any use for them. _Well, let them find you_ , the Clairvoyant had said. _It's time she knows the truth_.

After some platitudes she's ready to get to the heart – and what a heart – of the matter. It's so easy to get Agent Coulson to land the right taunt. Just as easy as killing five people to get their attention. As easy as threatening the world with Armageddon when it's already on the brink of disaster.

"What is it, Raina? Is he getting nervous, afraid we might be getting too close?"

"Why would the Clairvoyant be afraid of you?” Raina says, looking directly (and exclusively) at Skye, tugging at her handcuffs with childish glee. "You're the only family he has left."

"What are you talking about?" Coulson asks, before Skye can.

Raina tilts her head – she doesn't look at Coulson, she keeps looking at Skye through it all, studying her reactions so she can relate them later, with fidelity, so she can copy the pursed lips of a brave little _child_.

"You didn't know? He's your brother."

Skye snorts.

"Right. That's pathetic, a pathetic attempt, Raina. You have to up your game."

Raina shrugs.

She looks around at Coulson's team, stares at their non-reactions in amusement: they have been trained well, only the English girl lets her mouth fall slightly open for a moment, then concentrates on the back of Skye's head, as if she could divinate emotion from those set shoulders. The two specialists stand their ground, like the kind of interrogation they've assisted in a hundred times. And Agent Coulson... well, Agent Coulson is always very predictable.

"He's also an 084, that's what you people call it, isn't it,” Raina says, all friendly and relaxed, _cheerful_. “The only other human 084 in history. Because you come from the same place. That's why he couldn't see you at first. He thought you were inconsequential, but you are just Unknowable, because you two are made of the same materials."

"You are lying."

"Am I?"

She has practiced, copied his smile all these days – it's just a glint of cold light in the eyes and the mouth set a bit too wide. Raina has been watching, copying, while his mouth was full of this girl.

"To be honest I'm a little jealous," she admits, all the more effective because it's true. "You're all he talks about these days."

Skye winces, draws herself away, like some part of that gesture is her starting to believe.

It starts, Raina thinks.

This time the smile is all hers.

 

+

 

He keeps on killing.

In this little world without justice, SHIELD as the thin thread that pretended to hold together its sanity. Except the thread was wire, and wire can saw through bones if the right motion, and the right pressure is applied. Like everything, you have to learn how to manipulate it.

His toy soldiers, and his devoted followers, but he also likes to kill with his bare hands. Unlike poor Quinn, he's not squeamish about that.

 

+

 

It's two in the morning but she knows Coulson won't mind the hour. She's been locked in the lab for what seems ages, working, losing track of time.

She's not even sure she should be here, anyway. She's not sure what she knows.

For a while after he knocks on the door nothing happens except silence and Skye thinks he might be too deep in sleep to have heard her. But then she hears rustle of fabric and his feet on the floor, walking towards her.

“Skye?”

His eyes narrow, trying to focus through the darkness. She stares at him without a word for a second, weirded out to see him out of his suit; he's wearing a dark t-shirt and pajama bottoms. Skye feels a tension pooling at the back of her neck which she knows has nothing to do with the mission. She pushes it aside immediately.

"I'm sorry to bother you so late, sir."

"What is it?"

"I've done something. I mean I've discovered something. But I don't know if I can – but no, it can wait until tomorrow morning," she turns to leave, but of course she doesn't. "No, actually, it _can't_ wait."

"Come on in," Coulson tells her, sliding the door closed once she's inside.

He switches on the small lamp in his desk, a low light, like he guessed Skye wanted them to be discrete. Then he gestures for her to sit on his bed. It shouldn't be strange –he has sat on her bed a dozen times– but the bed is unmade, slept in, _warm_ , and Skye feels awkward there. She does it, though, without hesitation. Coulson takes a chair in front of her.

"You remember when they brought all that stuff from the Hub, all the bits and pieces, in case we can use them, now that SHIELD–"

"I remember."

"Simmons and I picked up a couple of things. And there was this thing – you remember, the black box, this little apparatus SHIELD was developing.”

“We wondered what the hell that was, yes,” Coulson says. She knows clean up duty is not his favorite part of the job (what job?) and he had been wildly hesitant about allowing boxes and boxes inside the Bus without knowing if anything inside could be dangerous. But like with any other decision these days, it was a job no one else was bothering to do and at least, Coulson reasoned, they had the skills to do it safer than most.

“I read the catalog and it said they were using it for something having to do with Chinese satellites of all things, anyway that's not important, because it was obviously bullshit. It used the same technology you'd use to, say, in communications through different relay points, to conceal any trace of –“

“Skye,” Coulson stops her, a bit exasperated.

“Yes, sorry. Anyway, we were trying a bunch of things out, you know I've been trying to trace the feed the Clairvoyant uses to send his messages now, through the eye implant, after his latest wonderful update has left us completely in the dark. Not just the individual messages, handler to active, but a way to be able to map the his whole network.”

“Did it work? Did you find out how?”

Skye swallows.

" _I did_. I think I've found the way to deactivate the kill-switch from Centipede soldiers. Not just track the feed, I figured that one out too. But to stop the kill-switch from functioning, for good. We'd only need for the soldiers to receive one message while we're in the proximity and we'd be game. I could probably tinker with it so we won't even need to be in same place, but that's a bit down the road."

“Deathlock?”

“Yeah, with Simmons' help, probably even Mike's switch.”

"That's good news," Coulson says, looking confused at how deflated she sounds.

"Not only that. I think – no, I'm sure, I've figured out a way to _hack_ into Centipede's feed, without them knowing it's happening, for a while at least, or – or until it's too late."

She can see him work it through his brain, and suddenly it's kind of comforting, how smart he can be, because she's not sure she could spell it out.

Coulson sits back. "You mean... we could replace the Clairvoyant's orders with our own?"

"Yeah... Even _activate_ the switch ourselves if we wanted to."

He rubs his face for a moment. Skye is trying not to look at him, looking at his bare feet instead.

"This is..." he trails off.

"Well, I wouldn't barge into the boss' room at two in the morning for just any trifle," she says and they exchange a small smile. Skye's stomach drops a bit with the next thing she has to say: “But believe me, I'm not being humble when I tell you, I shouldn't be able to do this kind of stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“The technology the Hub sent us, that was the original application for it – there were obviously people who had the exact same idea. People who were halfway there. I think they wanted Fitz on the project.”

“Fitz knows anything about it?”

Skye shakes her head. “I don't think so. I don't think he should. Don't think anybody should, actually.”

They had been naïve enough to think that the Clairvoyant, Centipede, its victims, had been their direct and exclusive responsibility. That SHIELD would see it that way – of course not, something this important, they wouldn't leave it on Coulson's hands, Coulson and his merry band of misfits. How many teams had been working on this, keeping information from each other, because that's how SHIELD used to do things?

Coulson leans forward on his chair, elbows resting on top of his legs, his whole body bent in thought.

“SHIELD must have figured it was much, much more advantageous to hijack Centipede's army than to free those men. An instant army of its own, already trained and ready.”

There's a hint of disgust in his voice Skye appreciates.

“Sounds like our good old SHIELD to me,” Skye sighs.

“The secrets never end. Not even after the men keeping them have vanished,” Coulson says. He sounds tired, more than just it's-the-middle-of-the-night version of tired. He looks Skye in the eye. "What do you want to do with this?"

She shakes her head – in the half-darkness the brushing of her hair against her shoulders is an audible thing. She twists her hands into the covers of his bed. "I can't. I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't manipulate people to follow our orders on the threat of killing them, even if it's we'd be just bluffing – oh god I hope we'd be just bluffing, what was SHIELD thinking. It's – I can't."

"Skye, Skye," he puts his hand on her knee, stopping her fretting. "I know. I know that."

And she knows, she knows it would be a solution, the swiftest, most painless one. It would take so little, just a key stroke. People smarter than her had already made the calculations and found it was worth it, people with more experience, people who belonged here much more than she could ever claim to. And she's seen the videos, watched the three men who were killed this week trying to protect the last secrets kept inside the Sandbox. She's seen how meticulously the broken pieces are being picked up, the ruins of this organization used as tools to build a new world. The Clairvoyant's world.

And she knows not everyone working under him is innocent. For every Mike Peterson (or Akela Amador) there must be at least two mercenaries, ruthless assassins, and men who willingly offered to exchange their peace and their will and their sleep for a position in the new empire. But Skye can't make that distinction, if she makes that distinction she's no better than the men who let SHIELD rot to the core for decades.

“I realize the Clairvoyant has killed a lot of people," Skye says, "and would go on killing more but please, don't ask me –“

“No, no. Stop talking for a minute and listen to me. I wouldn't ask that from you. Ever.”

She doubles over herself, puts her head in her hands. Through her fingers she gives Coulson a sad smirk. She wonders how did they arrive at this point. She knows the answer to that.

“Some days... don't you just wish you had never picked me up from my van in the first place?”

Coulson's expression softens. “Honestly? I doubt anything could ever happen which made me think that.”

“Thanks, boss.”

He nods.

“We could just order all those soldiers to come to us, so we can just deactivate their implant, we wouldn't have to wait to cross paths with them.”

“That's a good idea in theory and I swear I know how much easier that would be, but I'd still have to develop the technology, I'd still have to write the code. I'm not comfortable with that. This thing shouldn't even _exist_ in the first place. Same way Centipede's tech shouldn't have existed, in the first place.”

He pauses, thinking about it. Perhaps he's thinking she is not cut out for this, that she is unable to make the hard calls. She hopes not, she hopes he is thinking about SHIELD's recent and not so recent history, how eventually you can justify anything just by telling yourself you are hunting monsters.

"Listen,” Coulson says, leaning to talk even closer to her. “Can you figure out a way to stop the kill-switch without... anyone ever finding out you can do the other thing?"

"Can I make a dumber version of what I have already invented? Sure, I can make anything _dumber_ than it is, you know me."

"Simmons can help," he says. "If you feel we can tell her."

"Yeah. I trust her."

Skye wonders what was the last time the choice wasn't hers. When did Coulson started following her orders and not the other way around.

It doesn't matter – she might call him " _sir_ " from time to time, to make a point, to raise a wall, but in the new world rank doesn't mean a thing.

 

+

 

Her second escape is even easier. 

She tugs at the threads of a fallen empire, until the fabric is a pile of nothing at her feet.

We told you it was coming to an end, she would want to say, if she could, to Agent Coulson. She likes Agent Coulson – he is both tough and easy to manipulate, at the same time, the kind of challenge Raina enjoys. He's a good man, and good men are always a liability to themselves. Raina likes him nonetheless.

 

+

 

She was right, it worked.

Next time Centipede tries to raid an ex-SHIELD facility they see it coming, and manage to free seventeen soldiers, manage to deactivate seventeen kill switches. That means Centipede, the way they knew it, is done for. The organization has never been about numbers (why would you need numbers when your soldiers are virtually unkillable) – and seventeen soldiers is more than half their manpower. They call it a great coup, those who pretend to be still in power ( _someone has to organize what's left_ Coulson told her when she asked why they were still following orders – she comes up with an easier explanation, _we need the money_ ), count it as the first post-SHIELD triumph, the first gesture of goodwill the world at large can understand. It's good press, of that they have no doubt.

They are not defending SHIELD's secrets, not anymore. They are trying to help those caught in the web.

Ward decides to be the one doing the debriefing, the one to explain to all those men what happens next.

"I know how it is," he says before he leaves, hungry to help, knowing he's in a privileged position to do so – though privileged might not be the word Skye is looking for here.

"You'll be terribly careful, though, won't you?" Simmons asks.

Ward looks at Skye and Coulson, then back at Simmons.

" _Terribly_."

After he is gone Simmons and Coulson crowd her, victory in their faces. They don't understand, can't understand – there's no victory for her here.

“A lot of people owe you their freedom today, probably their lives too,” Coulson is saying, sounding annoyed at how distracted she seems, but his expression says another thing.

Simmons is half-grinning, too. Skye doesn't feel the warm reach her.

“It wasn't me," she tells them. "It was SHIELD's evil technology made a little less evil.”

“That's a skill, too,” Coulson says.

She smiles at him and it's a lie; she's lying to someone who can tell, so it doesn't really mean a thing.

“What's wrong?” he asks.

“I don't know,” she shrugs. “I feel it was a little too easy. Don't you? Like he didn't even care about Centipede.”

"You think he's planning something else?" Simmons asks. "Something – _eviler_?"

"What I'm saying is," Skye steps back, taking in the room so that she can look at both Simmons and Coulson. "We can't let our guard down, until the man is in a cell."

Simmons and Coulson exchange a skeptic glance – like they know _what good would a cell do_.

 

+

 

“Why _the Clairvoyant_?” Raina asks, settled against his arm, cheek pressed into the crook of his elbow.

(the Clairvoyant doesn't like to be touched  
unless)

“Everybody chooses their own name, Raina. You picked yours, too. And so did _she_.”

The pull of history is irresistible. They are meant to be mirror narratives. Raina, more than most, knows how important names are.

 

+

 

“Feeling better?” Skye asks, handing him a bottle of water.

Mike takes it with his good hand, his one hand. The other arm useless right now, contained by the circular device that makes sure its inert circuits don't spring into life. They have assured him there was no danger, once they had cut the Clairvoyant off from him, but Mike had been so terrified that his body might take on a life of its own that they had to make his arm and his leg dead weight for now.

“I'll feel even better when I can see my son, and not just hear him on the phone.”

“We're getting you there as soon as we can,” Coulson says. “I hope you know I would have never let my team approach you if I wasn't sure we could guarantee your son's safety.”

Mike nods. He can't even begin to apologize to the man (even though that night on the bridge seems like a million years ago, and far from the worst thing he has done to Coulson and his people) but he doesn't doubt him, not anymore.

“And don't worry,” Skye says, gesturing towards his leg and arm, towards the bits of him that are no longer skin and flesh. “We'll figure out a way to take Deathlock out of you. You won't be like this for long.”

He swallows, suddenly he'd preferred if they weren't looking at him. He doesn't want any human being to see this in him. It passes, because he realizes it doesn't really matter – once he had been too ashamed of his actions to face Ace and he had avoided him, now he knows that had been a mistake. What was that Skye had said when they found him, and he had begged Agent Ward to kill him, too cowardly to try it himself? She said: _you're alive, everything else is fixable_.

“SHIELD might be no more,” Coulson tells him. “But we have good people working on your case, doctors you can trust. We are not going to leave you out to dry. We will fix it, we promise.”

“I know,” he says.

“I think we should let Mr Peterson rest now.”

“Right.” Skye pushes a laptop in front of him. “I've set up a secure line so you can talk to and see Ace if you want, I know the trip must seem way too long for you. Don't worry, it's easy, it works just like Skype.”

Mike chuckles, startled at himself for doing so. Skye smiles – and Mike thinks that, after hearing Ace's voice for the first time in months, this is the thing that has made him feel a bit human again, this girl's smile, and he remembers it from way back, from when it all started, and he knows what it means, having these two people in front of him, these two people who surprisingly have never given up.

“You said there would be no third chances,” he reminds Coulson.

“I lied.”

Mike nods; he watches Skye giving Coulson a proud look, and suddenly he remembers the Clairvoyant saying that whatever catastrophe he was raising it was meant for the both of them. He feels sick at the bottom of his stomach. He feels a bit like he did in that Italian villa, knowing he should have stayed and helped Skye, the impotence of not really having that choice. They told him what had happened afterwards, Quinn shooting her after all. Right now Mike feels a bit like he did hearing that. A word on the tip of his tongue like there's something he should be doing to protect these two people, if he only knew what.

He's already told them everything in debriefing, every word the Clairvoyant ever sent to him. But he wants to extra stress this part.

“You two be careful, okay?”

Skye and Coulson turn to him. “What do you mean?”

“The way the Clairvoyant talked about you, the choice of words, it was, I don't know, creepy. From one point on he was very insistent that neither you nor Agent Coulson should be harmed. Like he had bigger plans for you two.”

He watches as the other two exchange a glance.

“That's ominous, sure,” Skye says, the bluff clearly readable on her face, “but that's his specialty, right? Creepy and ominous. Don't lose sleep over that. Did he say anything else about me?”

Suddenly her face is not so confident, Mike can see an anxiety he's never seen before there. He doesn't know Skye very well, but he knows her enough to tell the question means something, that she is fishing for something specific.

Even though he set this down in the debriefing Mike doesn't really want to repeat the words.

“Yes,” he replies. “He said you were special. What did he mean by that?”

Skye shrugs. “He's a deranged murderer, who knows what's in his head.”

Mike watches Coulson watch her, her face turned away in discomfort.

“Let us worry about the Clairvoyant,” Coulson tells him. “Right now your only job, Mr Peterson, is being with your son.”

And Mike doesn't know if he can ever go back, go home, not after the things he's done (the things they made him do – but he is not able to think like that, not yet), but now he is free to find out, on his own, and in peace.

 

+

 

His powers, even when great and frightful, have always been imperfect. It didn't take much to figure out he was not who he was supposed to be. When he predicted the new baby was coming everybody nodded in agreement: that makes much more sense. He had never been the one intended to inherit all that power. They had called him fraud, usurper, but only behind his back, of course.

 _You're a protector_ , they told him, that was the other version of it. A consolation prize for the family reject. When she comes she will have brittle bones – it will be easy then, he told himself. These hands were made for blood.

Before she was born he thought she was coming to take everything from him.

Now he knows she is the only thing that can give everything back.

(it was what she had been designed for, branded into the marrow of those bones: give give give give until nothing of her remained)

 

+

 

The Clairvoyant's voice is sharp, nasal. No distinguishable accent – Skye can see Coulson making the calculations in his mind, can see him profiling, intelligent eyes narrowing in a particular way with each word, while he tries to keep the Clairvoyant on the line. Skye's fingers fly at her computer.

But the Clairvoyant doesn't want to talk to Coulson, resents him picking up the phone.

"I'm not interested in your secrets anymore, Agent Coulson. You're a fucking pawn. Put my queen on the line, please."

She and Coulson exchange a horrified glance at the chosen language in that last line.

And Skye can do this. She can talk to this monster and trace the call at the same time. Coulson gives her a warning look when he gets out of her way.

"I'm here. What do you want?"

A pleased sound on the other end.

"I'm sorry I tried to get you killed, my dear. I didn't know it was you."

"I'm sorry I brought your whole operation down," she replies.

"You think I care about that? That was just a game I was playing. Life gets very boring when you can see everything."

“See everything? More like hear everything because you've bugged every room in the planet.”

“I'm not gonna lie,” he says. “That helped.”

 

+

 

“If I am with her I am powerful,” he tells Raina.

It's not an accurate explanation, but then again she doesn't need to know the details.

His visions have been clouding for years. He can feel it – coils of power slipping from his body. The more powerful the girl gets (and she doesn't even know it, can't notice her own growth; he's full of disgust for her for choosing such a life) the weaker his own abilities grow. The old clarity is not here anymore. Only flashes of it – enough though, enough to convince people like Quinn, enough to make Raina touch his skin and wonder at the terrors underneath. Technology does the rest. Being the Clairvoyant is an act of will. But even that is not enough anymore. 

He thought it was the girl's blood which would make him powerful again.

He's going to need much more than that.

She's going to need to do much more than die for him.

 

+

 

First thing they tell you: the key to every story is, the hero has to _suffer_.

 

+

 

Raina's next escape is she dies.

Her body disappears from a SHIELD-owned facility with such ease, like water dripping and slipping through cracks in the ground.

“There's no justice in the world,” he tells her. “Just whatever simulacra you can carve for yourself. First rule is: I'm sorry but this is going to hurt.”

 

+

 

Up close he looks like someone Ian Quinn would associate himself with, right down to the sleazy haircut, the three-piece suit.

He can see Skye studying his features with a curiosity that is very precise, even if she refuses to admit it is. She stops a long time in his eyes, because they are just as dark.

It doesn't even occur to her to question how he got in, how he managed to slip in without setting off the alarms, either the airbase's or the Bus'.

“Told you we'd see each other soon. Why don't you have a seat?" he tells her. "It's your plane, after all.”

She's in the middle floor; she thinks about how far the cockpit is, May her best option. She tries to remember, is Ward in his bunk or still hanging around in the lab with Simmons. She thinks about Coulson's room, right above her. If she screamed right now, would she be alive long enough to make it count? Fear freezes every organ inside her body. The Clairvoyant kills quick; she has seen what he did to those men in the assault team the last time they got close to finding him.

He studies her, not to pose a question with it, but like it was a right.

“I don't get it. Why are you so afraid of me? I have only offered you answers.”

Skye presses her arms against her sides, stilling her trembling shoulders, “This situation totally doesn't look like you are going to kill me.”

“I wanted us to talk in peace and privacy. Without all these acquaintances of yours interrupting, these drones.”

"You're a murderer. The only thing you and me have to talk about is the terms of your surrender."

"Where have you learned to talk like that?" He says. "I'm sorry I left you on your own for so long."

He's lying, Skye thinks. Trying to get to me. She does not pause on the words _on your own_ – because that's not her anymore, so it's not something him or anyone else gets to use against her. If he's dangerous, so is she. 

"Don't you want to know where you come from? What you can do?"

She stands his gaze. She might be trembling in terror but she won't back down.

“Don't you want to know your real name?”

“The name's Skye,” between her teeth.

"I resent a world that makes you feel like being so small is okay."

"I'm not playing this game. If you are planning on killing me, you'd better be quick and silent, because my team–"

"Still don't believe me? I'm hurt. There should be no distrust among siblings." He goes to the bar. Skye looks around desperately, trying to find something that can help. He pours himself a glass of scotch and downs it in one go. "Nice bar, by the way. Here. Take this to Jemma Simmons, have it analyzed."

He leaves the glass on the table and he is way too close.

“You're lying. It's a trick.”

She doesn't know what he is hoping to achieve with all this. Maybe he is just the madman everybody assumes he is, and this is completely random.

His fingers brush the back of her neck for a moment. Skye feels them, long and cold.

“We were made for such great, terrible things,” he hisses against her ear. “I want you to come to me, but freely.”

Then he's gone. He's gone but Skye can't find her voice and call someone to her side, not in a while at least.

 

+

 

“I'm sorry, Skye,” Simmons is saying. Again.

“Please don't say that again.”

She leaves the clipboard on the desk before Skye, but it's not like Skye is going to read it.

"He wasn't lying,” Simmons tell her. Again. “Whoever he is, you and him share genetic material."

Coulson is saying nothing, nothing at all, which she appreciates. 

“This is too big to even – Skye, are you all right...?” Simmons places one hand on her shoulder.

“What? Yes, just–“ Skye tries to be as gentle as she can when she withdraws from her friend's touch. “I'm fine, just... guys, give me a minute here.”

And she walks out of there.

It's only some minutes later that Coulson follows her into her bunk.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure, why wouldn't I. Just because the family I have been looking for so long is comprised of a megalomaniac mass murderer and... no, that's it, just the murderer and me."

Coulson sits on her bed. A dozen times and once more, it doesn't matter, not now, if this is true. She wishes they were still in his room, discussing SHIELD's traditional penchant for shadiness, sitting on his unmade bed.

"He's lying," she says, and her voice sounds horrible and unconvincing even to herself.

"Skye."

Coulson grabs her wrists, very gently. Her head falls forward, forehead pressed against Coulson's chest. He frees one of her hands, places his on her back and shifts her in a way so that her body is comfortably pushed into the crooks of his. The other hand is still staying her, fingers drawing circles on her wrist.

"He's lying, he's lying, _he's lying_ ," she says, whispers, mutters into Coulson's collar.

They stay like that for the longest time, Skye breathing deeply. His smell is something familiar and safe, something removed from the madness that is _everything else_ right now. She's probably taking advantage of him, probably hasn't earned this proximity, but it's not like she can stop herself right now. It's either this or losing it.

But eventually she decides that no, she can't do that, can't stay in this moment forever, or a minute too long.

"Sir..." She feels Coulson stiffen at the word. "You need to take me out of this mission."

"What are you talking about?"

She pulls away from him, twisting her hands free.

"I'm a liability."

“You are our best chance of defeating him,” he tells her, a little too graciously, and for a stern ex-SHIELD agent a lot can be said about Coulson's tact. “You've always been.”

He can't understand. And Skye really, really prefers it that way. It's working, whatever the Clairvoyant is doing, she knows it's working, because above everything else Skye still wants to know, know, know.

"Whatever his plan is, he knows how badly I want to know where I came from. He can use it against us."

Her hair has fallen over her eyes and Coulson brushes it away, strand by strand, grabbing a handful between his fingers and pushing it behind her ears. He does that for quite some time, until her vision is clear.

"Anything can be used against us, you can't go think like that, it's not useful,” he tells her in a soft voice. “This man got someone to shoot you just to see what I would do. Used our close relationship to hurt the team. I am just as much of a liability as you. But you have every right to know where you come from, don't let his ploys make you think you should give that up."

Skye nods, in part because she needs him to stop being so nice for a moment. Because if he stops then she can start making sense of it again.

“At least... Can you let me be the one to tell the rest of the team?”

“Of course.”

 

+

 

His hands were not covered in blood that time – but only because he did not like that kind of stuff to touch him.

He killed them all. Oh it had been easy, and entirely satisfying. He had amassed enough power, enough followers, that it was all one swift blow. Soon he was the last scion in a house he himself scattered to ashes. That no one saw it coming was ironic.

(well, maybe not the _last_ , but he was going to take care of that problem soon; his long, killer's fingers set against those indeed brittle, newborn bones)

He had meant to kill the baby, small, gasping creature. Such a tiny, pitiful thing – she was never meant to survive.

He had meant to kill the baby but the baby knew how to protect herself, had tried to protect the village until power was so drained out of her that she remained unconscious for hours. But before that – 

When he woke up, three days later, there was the taste of river soil, the taste of red clay, in his mouth. _... tried to drown me_ he thinks, feeling the family connection for the first time.

 

+

 

Raina wakes up, because that was always the plan.

He's in the middle of gathering his followers, their next mission is not precisely a new one.

"Again?"

"Fastest way to get her attention."

"If I didn't know better," she tells him, "I'd say you're jealous."

She also thinks he's wrong about some things here. She won't tell him (that's not her job, that's not why she is here at all) but – that particular miscalculation, she made it too. And once upon a time she had the bruise on her left cheek to prove it.

 

+

 

"Those soldiers weren't under anyone's control, they were just... very devoted. You couldn't have known that."

It sounds less comforting because it's coming from Simmons. She needs someone hard and clear-eyed to tell her it wasn't her fault. She needs someone like May. But of course May is busy doing her own self-pity routine, and Skye suddenly feels intimately close to her for that.

“I'm sorry, Skye,” Ward says and that's a bit better, he says it like he knows, and well, he probably knows better than most – he was her SO for a long time, he was bound to notice it in her.

“I should have been there with you guys, on the field.”

“Then who would have been taking care of the feeds?” Simmons asks. “You were needed back here. And well – if Ward and Agent May couldn't stop them... I don't mean to be rude but... what do you think you could have done?”

She knows she's right, of course; what good would have Skye done, with her basic training and her weak body? But it would have slightly less painful, she thinks, if she had been there instead of watching the whole thing go down on her computer screen.

“Why would the Clairvoyant do this? Why not kill us all?”

Skye is staring at her screen, the feed from this afternoon on loop. She's not looking at faces, just movements, bodies being dragged through the grainy space of security cameras. It seems like the Clairvoyant knows exactly what he is doing – for the first time she is willing to contemplate the possibility that he has powers, rather than that he merely believes he has. Then she remembers all the surveillance they've been under and maybe it's not that hard, for him to know exactly what he is doing.

“Because he wants me to suffer,” she replies.

"Hey. This is not the first time the Clairvoyant has taken Coulson," Ward says, standing by Simmons, copying her resolute posture. "You found him once, you can do it again."

"Ward's right. Plus he already knows the kill-switch is no longer operative so there would be no reason to implant it in Agent Coulson or some insane evil plan like that."

"Thank you, Simmons, I had not thought about that at all. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Sorry, I'm not great at lifting the morale of the troops, I know."

"You're horrible at it," Skye says. She watches as Ward squeezes Simmons' shoulder in encouragement. Skye just feels awful. "But you were just trying to help so, _thank you_."

Simmons looks up at her, tiniest bright smile and all.

"What are you going to do?" Ward asks.

That, well, she's always known.

"The Clairvoyant said he wanted me to come to him. I think it's time to give him what he wants."

 

+

 

 _Devotion_ is a good word.

He was, after all, born to be a preacher, brandishing his faithful like a gun, watching them go down, happily, in his (fake) name.

In the end there's only Raina, but she is the only weapon he ever needed.

 

+

 

She's always known this is a trap. It doesn't matter – Ward and an assault team are outside and if nobody is getting out of this alive the Clairvoyant isn't either, she'll make sure of that. _I don't think this is greatest of plans_ , Simmons had said, but she bowed to Skye's imagined authority.

She's always known this is a trap – it feels and smells and looks like a trap, textbook even. The way she finds Coulson so easily, in a dark and dank place, tied to a chair, like the kind of thing a B-movie villain would do. He _is_ a B-movie villain, just with a better tailor.

There are three chairs in the room and Skye wonders if that has some meaning.

(everything has a meaning, he could have told her, even if he himself didn't know the exact one)

“Are you okay?”

Coulson nods. “Pretty bored, actually.”

“Sorry I'm late. Let me untie you.”

He sucks in a breath. “It's a trap.”

“I can reach that conclusion on my own, thanks, give me some credit.”

“No, he means it's a trap _right now_ ,” a voice behind her says.

“Great. _Sorry_ ,” she says, looking at Coulson while the Clairvoyant, gun pressing on her temple until it can almost leave a mark, guides her up on her feet. “I didn't hear him coming. Rookie mistake, uh?”

But this has always been the plan. She's the bait, and nothing else matters. She's the bait and maybe she can get some information out of it.

Coulson looks terrified for the first time. “ _Skye_...”

“Stop saying that fucking name,” the Clairvoyant says, _snarls_. “That's not her name.”

He walks to her, palming her clothes in search of weapons. Skye winces. He takes the gun from her.

“A dendrotoxin gun? Oh, baby, I thought you were serious about this.”

He tosses the gun far out of reach. He tells her to sit. It's all very James Bond villain, Skye thinks. She hopes that includes the blatant incompetence.

“What do you even need me for? Why don't you just kill me? Instead of making me run around in circles.”

He looks hurt. Mock-hurt and actual hurt at the same time, if that's even possible. “Don't say that. We're family.”

“And his powers are fading,” adds Coulson.

“I told you that in confidence!”

"He thinks you can help him recover them," Coulson explains.

“I don't have any powers,” Skye says, the only thing she's sure of at this point. “Whoever said that, whoever believed that when I was born, they were wrong.”

He clicks his tongue. “You weren't born, not really. I wasn't either. But we have the same mother. Do you want me to tell you about our lovely mother? She was so surprised when I came to kill her that night that she couldn't even scream for help. Don't you want to know her name? Your true name?”

“You're disgusting.”

“Do you know what a curse is?” he asks. 

She's not playing this game.

“You should have seen me when I was thirteen. I could see so far into the future that my own self didn't matter, only the solid shape of history,” he tells her.

She avoids his eyes.

“You should have seen me when I was fifteen. I could see everything stretched out in front of me, ripe for the picking,” he tells her.

She stop the little noises of her breathing, she becomes quiet like something which should have never been born.

“I could see everything. Including the little baby who was to come soon and ruin it all.”

She looks up.

"You," he says. "Of course you. You are the hero of all these stories."

 

+

 

_You know what a curse is? A curse is killing your whole family thinking it's the only thing you can do to protect your powers – then finding out their blood is the only thing which could stop you from losing them._

_But it's about much more than blood at this point. Isn't it? It's about heart._

 

+

 

“You know this is the end of the road,” Skye tells him. “You're not getting out of this one.”

“You mean your little squad of reformed Centipede soldiers blocking my way? The tracker you have on your body so that Agent Ward can find you here? You people are so prosaic. I have no intention of scrambling to get out of here alive. You and me, our victories and defeats should be much grander than that.”

“And you are so esoteric. You must realize how ridiculous you sound, right?”

They are just trying to stall the other. 

Skye curls her fingers around the edge of his chair. The Clairvoyant circles her, like a shark, and it's an easy image, she knows, but it's the precise one.

"I don't even need to see the future when it comes to you, that should tell you something about my devotion. How simple it was to get you here, how beautifully circular. I once used you to get to Agent Coulson, when I thought he would lead me to what I needed. Who knew it would be even easier, the other way around?"

Skye crosses her arms.

“Yeah, talking about that – you are going to untie him and let him go.”

The Clairvoyant narrows his eyes.

“Am I now?”

“I can also see the future, jackass, and yours sucks.”

“You are fighting it so much because, deep down, you know it's true,” he tells her, sounding righteous rather than evil. “You want it to be true. You are just like me, and the knowledge comforts you, because now you don't have to be alone.”

“She's nothing like you,” Coulson snaps, calling out from behind the Clairvoyant's back. “And she's not alone.”

Skye curses him under her breath; she has been trying to keep the Clairvoyant's focused attention on her, shield Coulson from it, because she knows of all the variables here Coulson is the easiest to discard. And now the Clairvoyant turns around to face him and Skye scrambles to find something to say, something to do, to keep him with her, get him back – there is an ugly glimmer in his eyes (eyes like hers) when he stands before Coulson.

"But you don't _know her_ ,” he says. “You can't see her. It's ironic because... Why do you think you are here right now? It's all she wants, for you to some day finally, finally _see her_. I'm not the jackass in this scenario."

He watches Skye from the corner of his eye. Skye blinks, calmly, giving him nothing. He focuses on Coulson once more.

"You can't see her wanting – wishing with that stupid, fluttering heart of hers, wishing that someday she might be worthy of you. Isn't that hilarious?"

Coulson's expression is just as closed down.

"Oh but you don't know about that. And of course _she doesn't know_ it's all in vain," the Clairvoyant turns around and goes to Skye, kneeling before her. Even though his voice remains mocking there's a tender expression on his face. Skye would look away, if she didn't consider that a defeat. He says, "You don't know: you'll never get what you want, my darling, Agent Coulson sees you, but only as a daughter, nothing more. It's better that you know now, I'm doing you a favor. I'm always looking out for you."

"I think you and I have very different definitions of looking out for someone. Now let him go."

"I'm a bit disappointed in you. My _sister_. We were born with the power to be gods among men, and you become obsessed... with _a bureaucrat_? Well, I have a quick fix for that."

 _No_.

"No!" Skye shouts at the same time the shot rings in her ear. She knew beforehand what would happen, because she always knew what to fear most.

She tries to run to him but the Clairvoyant holds her tightly, throws her back against the chair and she feels a blunt pain along her spine. Skye closes her eyes, willing the world to stop.

"Don't worry," the Clairvoyant is saying, whispering in mock-comfort, his face pressed against Skye's cheek, gripping Skye's wrists with both his hands. "It's okay, look, look, I haven't killed him. I won't, I promise I won't kill him, until it's really, really fun. It's just a scratch, just to frighten you. Look, open your eyes."

"Coulson...?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she hears him say, panting. He's not fine, obviously, not even close. The gunshot had hidden the sound of him screaming. He's doubling over in pain, blood dripping from his left side. But he's alive. Still alive.

She tries to get away; but his grip is even tighter on her wrists, so much that it hurts and so much she begins to worry – she knows what those hands can do to a neck. She tries to slip one foot behind his ankle, put to use all that SHIELD training but he holds her down, his nails digging into her pulse. She settles down a bit, evening out her breathing and bidding some time. She can't do that for too long (her eyes fixed on the drops of blood under Coulson's chair, her mind calculating the cost) but maybe if it's long enough help will come.

"If you are such a good psychic why don't you take a guess as to what I'm going to do to you, if Agent Coulson is not okay. Let me give you a hint: it starts with _kick_ and ends with _your sorry ass_."

"I always wanted a feisty little sister."

"Funny, an asshole big brother was never on my Christmas list."

 

+

 

The next room Raina wakes up in, with a gun in her hand, it's humid and dark and she knows exactly where she is.

She knows exactly what she has to do.

It's all about heart.

 

+

 

Skye doesn't know how much time has passed, or when the Clairvoyant let go of her arms.

“He's going to bleed to death,” she says, it sounds like a threat not a plea. “You know the deal. He dies, I kill you.”

“How droll. Can't you see everything I'm doing is for you?”

“You're a creep.”

“All I want is for you to realize our family's true potential. I can't, but you do.”

Once more he kneels in front of her, reverential and fuck, Skye would do anything to wipe that smirk of his face.

 _Anything_.

If he is dangerous, so is she, this time around.

When he comes to put his hand on her cheek and she doesn't move away and their faces are close enough she draws her shoulders back and takes impulse and brings her head crashing down against the Clairvoyant's nose.

It hurts so much that the pain is unbearable for a moment, the world gone white and dizzy and metallic and Skye is sure if she opens her eyes and lets go of the breath she is holding it will be too much, too sharp, better to stay here. But she's also sure she heard bones breaking, _felt_ bones breaking under her touch, so she opens her eyes and sees the man on the floor, hands holding his face, blood spurting obscenely from his nose, and whimpering noises from his throat.

Skye thinks Coulson is shouting something at her but his ears ring from the pain inside her skull.

Her hands grabs the gun before the rest of her body (let alone her brain) realize what is happening.

She rubs her forehead with the back of her hand. There's blood there, but she doesn't know if it's hers.

(does it matter?  
it's the same blood after all)

She goes to Coulson. The knots undo in her fingers easily, even if she is not looking at them, her attention still on the Clairvoyant. One arm up and holding the gun, pointing at him.

“Are you all right?”

He nods, with difficulty. She puts her hand to his wound, her fingers coming out warm and sticky and shaking. They have time, but not a lot.

“Stay right here, don't try to move.”

“Still a trap?” he offers.

Skye tilts her head. “Probably.”

She thinks: please, please, Ward, get here. 

The Clairvoyant wipes the blood off his nose with the back of his hand. He stares down at it, transfixed, like it's the greatest gift he's ever received.

“Blood of my blood...”

 

+

 

Nobody ever really stops working for the Clairvoyant; you sign his contract in blood, only the blood is rarely yours.

It's okay, Raina thinks, because dead women can't expect anything less binding than that. She learned, a long time ago, that she could carry someone else's war as if it were weightless. It's a lot easier than carrying the absence of your own memories. Empty is heavy. And he led her to the place where she could fill that emptiness. If for nothing else she owes him that. Even if she didn't love him she'd be in his debt. He always tells her: blood and debt are much more important than love.

She walks.

 

+

 

"I'm the only thing that's left of who you are,” he says and it's definitely a threat not a plea. “The only one who can tell you..."

"I know," she says, and she does. She looks into those eyes, and knows they are the same as hers. But when he said she was the hero of these stories, she had believed him. "But I can't let you hurt more people."

She points the gun at him.

They are close but Skye thinks, horrified at herself, how much of a good shot she is now. All those hours of practice, because she wanted to be a proper SHIELD agent (ironic), they might have been leading up to this. 

(Skye doesn't believe in destiny  
but her brother does)

" _Skye_." Coulson stumbles to her side, despite her admonishments, holding his left side. He wraps his fingers around her arm, right above her wrist. He tugs at her to get her attention – and she does look at him, eyes big and damp and tired and older than his.

Skye knows what he is going to say. She starts lowering her gun before he can even open his mouth.

"I'm not a killer," she says, to the world, but looking at him. If tearing her eyes from the Clairvoyant is foolish right now, then so be it. Coulson nods. Skye can't look away; she doesn't feel like she has the energy to deal with anything else, only him and his quiet, unwavering faith.

"I knew that," the Clairvoyant says, and Skye and Coulson turn around. "But you see, sister, I have no intention of losing."

The tracker in Skye's pocket beeps, telling them Ward and his team are close.

"Not fast enough," the Clairvoyant says.

That's when they see her.

 

+

 

He held the baby in his arms, for a moment, only for a moment.

(that was enough)

He understood what they had said – _you are her protector_ – and understood they had been right but he had already made his decision.

It was better this way, much better, at this point; he knew what she was meant to become, and the weight of knowing all these people had died for her (for her, _by him_ , there wasn't really a distinction on this night) would crush her. Better to eat her heart while it was still small.

Her eyes were dark when he looked into them. He hesitated a moment, the moment he should have broken her bones, or stopped her breathing, but that moment was enough. Next thing he knew the river was in his mouth, like a word, or a prayer, or her name.

 

+

 

" _Raina_? You were dead."

"So were you, Agent Coulson, once upon a time. Now if would be so kind as to drop your gun, Skye."

Raina says her name with the faux warmth of someone welcoming you to the worst job interview you've had in your life. It's easy, letting the weapon fall to the floor; in a way Skye is relieved the choice is no longer hers at all.

"Now what?” she asks the Clairvoyant, who's crawled to the nearest wall, leaning on it, his face still contorted in pain. “She's gonna kill me? I thought you wanted to realize our family's true potential."

"Oh, I'm not going to kill you," Raina tells her.

Afterwards she will remember hearing the Clairvoyant's laughter before she heard the shot.

Right now she doesn't hear anything. It's an image without a sound. The Clairvoyant is smirking, and then Skye sees a red ocean spread, almost too slowly, across his chest.

"He told me to aim at the heart," Raina says, tilting her head.

The Clairvoyant, head lulling, makes one last effort to look over Skye's shoulder, to where Raina is standing.

"Right at the heart. Thank you, my love." With difficulty. Dark drops of blood slipping out of his mouth, a trail down his chin.

Raina smiles a wide, lightless smile that chills all the blood in Skye's body.

Coulson hurries to take the gun from her, but there's no need, she drops it on the floor before her. Her eyes have gone wide and blank and joyful.

“What the–“ 

By the time Ward and his team get here all there is to see is Sky on her knees next to the Clairvoyant, holding his hand in hers.

“Don't you want to know your name?” he asks one last time.

Skye shakes her head sadly. “The name's Skye.”

He closes his eyes. The last time she's ever going to see eyes like that. She clutches his hand tightly.

The next thing she knows – the last thing that happens is: somebody slips one arm around her waist and Skye can smell blood and then Coulson's hand is threading her hair, stroking her scalp gently. She wants the world to become just that, that gesture of his and the warmth of her body engulfed by his arms. But it doesn't. The world is not like that: it's infinitely cold, just like the glance of recognition Raina is throwing her, while Ward puts on the cuffs.

(again, history repeating because it has no other choice)

 

+

 

In custody Raina tells her guards: “The thing about resurrection that nobody tells you is this: you have to die first.”

 

+

 

Simmons does what she can, but in the end it isn't much. The Clairvoyant has chosen his wounds very carefully, like everything else.

(except one detail)

"I'm sorry, Skye. He was your only family..."

Skye swallows, touches Simmons' arm gently. The words come out as a dry choke, but they are felt and meant. "That's not true."

 

+

 

_To come back to life first you have to die._

_Just – don't take things so literally, darling._

 

+

 

“Are you okay?” he says.

Everything is a bit deja-vu but sharper than the last time. She is sitting on her bunk, and there isn't blood in her hands and clothes anymore. And that is much, much worse.

“You need to stop opening our conversations like that. It gets old after a while.”

“I apologize.”

“I'm fine. All things considered. You?”

He touches his left side, hesitating, feeling for the bandages under his clean shirt.

“Another scar,” she says, shoulders dropping.

"It was not your fault."

"Well, my family kidnapped you and shot you. So."

He gestures towards her bed, asking for permission – and well, he's never done that before. Skye moves over, leaving room for him. He winces when he sits and she feels a bit guilty for that. Figures, because she wouldn't let him feel guilty when it was her wounds which hurt.

It seems like he is not going to talk and Skye wonders if she should say something instead. Then he turns to her and reaches his hand to her face, holding her with one open palm. It doesn't even surprise Skye because he has done this before.

“Skye...” he strokes his thumb along her cheek. “He didn't win. You can't allow him the petty victory of thinking he did.”

That's not his victory. His victory was to make his absence hurt. She couldn't explain it to Coulson, or if she could not yet. So she pushes it aside. But when she's pushed everything aside, _everything_ , there's still Coulson's hand against her cheek, at the end of it, and she has to know, she has to _know_ , she is going to ruin everything but she has to know.

“There are some things he said to me, back in that room...”

“Don't let that bother you,” he is quick to tell her.

Skye shakes her head. That's not it. And maybe this is not the time – but it's not like you can exactly accuse her of being a coward.

“I didn't think I had the right to let it distract me, back there. But now I have to ask. And it's okay, you can answer honestly, I'm not going to mind, I won't be hurt.”

Coulson frowns. “Answer what?”

"When he said that you saw me as a daughter..."

He takes a moment to reply; she understands this to be a bad sign.

"He was right – _about_ his powers fading. I think, by the end, he must have been a very bad psychic to say something like that."

Skye doesn't realize what those words could possibly mean until Coulson leans over and closes his mouth over hers. The kiss is warm and deep and surprising. His tongue slips past her teeth easily and Skye has to hold on to him for balance, fingers hooked over his elbows. His hands are in her hair and his mouth is pushing, pulling, teasing, until he drives the point home. And then and not one moment before – not until she _knows_ – he lets go.

Skye narrows her eyes at him.

“I'm going to take a wild guess and say that's a _no_ on the daughter stuff. I hope.”

He smirks and that's what really answers the question more than anything, the way he's looking at her now. Her own smile is weak –can't be any other way, not today– but she feels like it's the first time in years she can manage to.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks. She means it to sound playful, but it comes out sad and tired.

"I thought you didn't – when he said all that about you wanting me I assumed he was just grasping at straws, trying to mess with us."

"Well, he was right on track there. But you didn't have to be a psychic to figure that one out."

He runs his hand along her arm, squeezing her shoulder. He looks a bit embarrassed.

"No, I guess you didn't have to be a psychic."

He kisses her again.

Her face is damp when he pulls her into a hug.

“Your story doesn't end here” he tells her, fingertips feeling the ridges on her back. “We'll find out exactly where you come from, what you are supposed to be. We'll keep looking for answers. Together. Yes?”

But Skye can't think about that right now. More importantly, she doesn't want to.

“Could you just... kiss me again?”

He grabs her head in his hands again, she likes that bit, how his thumb would trace her eyebrow, the fingertips pressed behind her ears.

“Like that?”

Skye nods and this time she tries kissing him instead.

She kisses him, startled by the impunity to do so. By the noises she raises from him, one hand pressed against his chest and the other sprayed across his thigh. She puts a leg between his knees, pushing his weight against the side of the plane, climbing across his lap. Coulson lets out a small cry of pain and when Skye pulls away he's clutching at his side.

“Ouch.”

“Oh, god, sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“It's fine, I'm fine,” he says, a little smirk twisting in his mouth, reddened curved lips.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” and he's breathless, but not from the pain, “you just – you'll have to be careful with me. For the time being.”

She flats her hands against his chest. Of course she'll be careful with him. She has never been anything but.

It's this way for a bit; Skye doesn't really know what to do next, she looks down at their feet, fascinated by the image of her ankle across Coulson's shin even more than by the feel of it, this closeness, the feel of his lungs working under her hands.

Eventually Coulson lets out a sigh, both fond and frustrated.

“Careful doesn't mean _stop_.”

She smiles and grabs his shirt, pulling him against her mouth.

 

+

 

In her cell Raina plans her next great escape.

Because in the end the Clairvoyant might not have known much about love or what it looked like, but he knew a whole lot about planning ahead. Even without his powers he knew what it was like, to see so far into the future than the present didn't matter, your life didn't exist, only the bargains you could make with it.

The pull of history is irresistible and Raina has learned this too: every hero needs a nemesis and she is willing to do her part. After all, he would have wanted her to look after his little sister, wouldn't he.


End file.
